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Lagman blows whistle on 'alien projects' in budget deliberations, but what are they?

Philippines | National

Lagman blows whistle on 'alien projects' in budget deliberations, but what are they?

By Ellson Quismorio

At A Glance

During the deliberation on the Department of Public Works and Highways' (DPWH) proposed 2024 budget Thursday, Sept. 7, Albay 1st district Rep. Edcel Lagman raised the alleged existence of what he called "alien projects" in the P5.768-trillion National Expenditure Program (NEP) for next year.

(MANILA BULLETIN)

Count on independent minority solon Albay 1st district Rep. Edcel Lagman to find wayward, "out of this world" items in the proposed national budget.

During the deliberation on the Department of Public Works and Highways' (DPWH) proposed 2024 budget Thursday, Sept. 7, Lagman raised the existence of what he called "alien projects" in the P5.768-trillion National Expenditure Program (NEP) for next year.

According to the Liberal Party (LP) president, there are certain projects that skipped the review of the DPWH's district engineering office that somehow made their way into the NEP.

“We hope that in the submission of projects for inclusion in the NEP, the submission must be cleansed of 'alien projects', which have not been validated and scrutinized by the respective district engineering offices,” Lagman said.

He would further explain alien projects to reporters later as "those which crept into the NEP proposed by persons without passing the prior scrutiny and validation of the respective district engineering offices".

He claimed that such projects "impair the congessional district's amount ceiling and crowd out validated priority infra projects".

“We should make sure that the ceiling is not breached by these alien projects and priority projects should not be bumped by these projects in the submission in the NEP. Can we get a comment from the Secretary,” Lagman said, referring to DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan.

Bonoan said that in the preparation of the 2024 NEP, the agency "made sure that this is fully coordinated with members of Congress".

“This has been emphasized to all our district and regional offices that whenever they are going to submit…their proposed programs and projects under the regional budget proposals, we wanted this to be…fully coordinated with the members of Congress," he said.

"Of course we wanted… it would be aligned as well to the core program of the DPWH and plus, of course, a leeway by which we can accommodate the local priorities of members of Congress, your honor,” Bonoan added.

Lagman said that while he appreciated the policy of DPWH, “somehow there are still some ‘alien projects,’ which crept into the NEP".

“I hope that we can be very vigilant in safeguarding the submission to the NEP...In the event that these alien projects are subsequently validated and are necessary and relevant, they should be included after the submission of the NEP to Congress," the Bicolano said.

Lagman clarified that he has no problem with priority projects of lawmakers but “this should not bump off priority projects and it should not impair the ceiling".

Bonoan said that in cases where the priority projects of legislators were not included in the NEP, “We have this process, that we can go through an errata in the preparation of the final version of the budget."

The NEP is the precursor to the national budget or General Appropriations Act.

Related Tags

Department of Public Works and Highways national expenditure program Edcel Lagman alien

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